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Full text of "The Canadian Railroader Weekly. Vol. 3 No. 5-6: February 5 , 1921"

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m 1 LROHDeR 


Vol, 3, No. 9 


MONTREAL, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1921 10 cents a copy, |J.0« a year 


LABOR’S FOURTEEN POINTS 


The following are the fourteen main requests made to the Pro- 
vincial Government, by representatives of organized labor in the 


Province, for the enactment of new laws or for the modification of ex- 
isting laws: — 

1. — An industrial accident compensation law based upon the prin- 
ciple of compulsory State insurance. 

2. — An act limiting the hours of labor to not more than eight hours 
per day. 

3. — An act concerning the employment of women before and after 
childbirth. 

4. — A Mothers’ Allowance Act. 

5. An act establishing pension funds for aged and needy persons. 

6. — An act providing for the payment of fair wages and for the 
observance of other conditions. 

act adopting the system of proportional representation in 
provincial elections. 

An act providing for the double platoon system for firemen. 

9. An act to bring municipal employees under the Arbitration Act. 

10. — An act to control cold storage plants. 

11. Amendments to the law for the fixing of minimum wages for 



women. 


12. Amendments to the law providing for the inspection of 
scaffolding. 

13. — Education and school commission reform. 

14. — Measures of hygiene in industry. 


Official Organ, Fifth Sandav Meeting Association of Canada 


iMi wBrnHiimHiB HinnwiiMimniimmiiiiiimmiiHwiiiw 


THE CANADIAN RAILROADER 


February 5, 1921 


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MONTREAL, Que. 

WINNIPEG, Man. 

SEATTLE, Wash. 


February 5, 1921 


THE CANADIAN RAILROADER 


Page 3 





I 

I 

'i 



The Greatest Tragedy of the Road 

Conductors Mind Should Be Concentrated On Ensuring Safety 
of Life and Property Under His Care, Not Distracted 
by Passengers Trying to “Beat” Fare. 

By GEORGE PIERCE 



T here is a provision in the Railway Act which 
has a direct bearing upon the matter under dis- 
cussion in these articles. It is of special interest to 
the public because it suggests an opportunity for the people 
in gx,neral for co-operation which could largely assist in 
eliminating many of the trials and much of the incon- 
venience with which railroad men are pestered. 

The Railway Act reads: — 

“The Company, or the directors of the Company, by 
By-law, or any officer of the Company who is thereonto 
authorized by a By-law of the Company or directors, may, 
from time to time, prepare and issue tariffs of the tolls to 
be charged in respect of the railway owned or operated by 
the Company, and may specify the persons to whom, the 
place where, and the manner in which such tolls shall be 
paid.” 

Railway companies provide offices where tickets may be 
purchased for travel. It is surprising how many people 
dispense with the facilities offered. And it is here that 
the woes of the conductor begin. During the week-end 
crush in summer, passengers scramble aboard the trains in a 
flutter of great excitement, many without tickets. It is 
here that the hide-and-seek, little Bo-peep games come into 
play. A sort of a puss-in-the-corner affair, in which many 
very shy personages demonstrate their bashfulness by 
looking out of the window when the conductor comes around. 
They flit up and down the aisles looking for nooks and 
crannies in a general defy for the conductor to discover or 
find them. It is not so difficult, however, to discover the 
conductor. He will be stationed just outside of the wash- 
room with the patient resignation of the sentinel who has 
a long and watchful vigil to keep. As a diversion, the 
tedium is enlivened by arguments about fares with pas- 
sengers who don’t know what the fare is to the point of 
destination, but who adopt the policy of protestation on 
general principles. I have never been able to discover the 
motive actuating passengers who persist in changing all 
their big bills while aboard train, yet it is a fact that the 
smaller the distance to be travelled, the bigger the bill 
presented for change. During these week-end excursions, 
conductors are loaded up with enough money to make a bank 
manager with an eye to the deposits green with jealousy. 

Conductors declare that on many local trains ten to 
fifteen per cent, of the passengers board the trains without 
buying tickets, even where ticket agents are on duty. It is, 
however, easily comprehended that it is next to impossible 
for the conductors to collect all the cash fares when it is 
remembered that rebates must be punched out in each and 
every instance. 

It would appear from all this that if the government en- 


acted the law requiring the purchase of tickets instead of 
leaving the matter of a by-law to the discretion of the 
railway companies, the general situation would be greatly 
benefited and the conductors would highly appreciate it, be- 
cause doing business in the present way compels the con- 
ductor to put in two or three hours work on frequent occ-" 
asions, after his regular run is over, straightening up his 
affairs before he can make a clear report. The conductor 
receives no pay for the time he gives in preparing his account' 
for the accounting department. 

But serious enough though loss of time, money and 
morals may be, there is another aspect which is still more 
serious. A conductor is the “captain of the ship”. He 
is responsible for the safe carriage of his passengers. His 
time and thought should be concentrated primarily on the 
running of his train ; a forgotten order, an order too hastily 
scanned, a distraction from the rules of the road, may at 
any moment mean death or injury to the passengers. If a 
conductor’s time is taken up with making change and 
writing tickets for ticketless passengers, and ar^mg about 
fares, his mind is not as free and clear as it should be for 
his more important duties relating to the safety of the 
train. 

Have you ever seen a conductor suddenly jump from 
an argument about fares to the end of the car to attend 
to something else ? He has just rushed to a duty which, 
if forgotten, might mean the death of half a hundred 
persons. 

Some years ago a conductor on the Wabash ran his 
train into a culvert where a fire had destroyed the bridge. 
Several lives were lost, other passengers were seriously 
injured, and there was great damage to rolling stock. He 
had previously been given a written order, to stop short of 
the culvert At the enquiry he admitted having received 
the order and having fully understood it — but disputes with 
a number of ticketless passengers had driven the thought 
of it from his mind until too late to save the train! 

It will be seen that these cash fares are an unending 
source of moral mischief and physical danger. 

Nearly all conductors agree that the great majority 
of the people who insist on boarding trains without tickets 
do so for the express purpose of beating the fare. Apart 
from all these considerations, the present system places 
a great temptation continuously before our railroad men. 

If passengers were obliged to purchase tickets before 
getting on trains, and if the existing law referred to in a 
previous article, providing imprisonment for those who 
attempt to corrupt railroad conductors, were properly 
brought before the public, the results would be most bene- 
ficial to the public, the companies and the employees. 





THE CANADIAN RAILROADER 


February's, 1921 


Page 4 


Ottawa Preacher Urged Women 
and Girl Store Clerks to 
Join Union 


44 T ET all the women and girls 

I j employed in the stores in 
Ottawa join the Retail 
Clerks’ Union,” said Rev. Father 
John J. O’Gorman during the course 
of a recent sermon on “The Chris- 
tianizing of Industry” in Blessed 
Sacrament Roman Catholic Church, 
Ottawa. “Next,” he said, ‘'let the 
officials of the Retail Clerks’ Union 
demand at once that the Minimum 
Wage Board, recently formed under 
the Ontario Minimum Wage Board 
Act of 1920, immediately investigate 
the wages paid women and girls in 
Ottawa stores and establish for such 
employees a minimum legal wage.” 

Following is the bulk of the ser- 
mon: — 

“A very large portion of the 
earthly destinies of perhaps the ma- 
jority of the human race is shaped 
by the struggle for wealth. To-day, 
in the civilized portion of the world, 
the competition for wealth is indus- 
trialized. The big industries affect 
directly almost our whole urban 
population and indirectly, yet very 
powerfully, the rural population. 
The general attitude of industry, 
since present conditions became com- 
mon, over a century ago, has been 
to act as if it were independent of 
religion. As a result: ‘A small num- 
ber of very rich men have been able 
to lay upon the teeming masses of 
the laboring poor a yoke little better 
than that of slavery itself.’ That 
phrase was not written by a Social- 
ist or a Bolshevist, but by Pope Leo 
XIII in his Encyclical on the con- 
ditions of the Working Classes.’ The 
same pope spoke of Hhe misery and 
wretchedness pressing so heavily 
and unjustly at this moment on the 
vast majority of the working 
classes.’ 

“What is the remedy? The rem- 
edy is the Christianization of indus- 
try. 

“In a statement of social recon- 
struction put forward in England by 
the Interdenominational Conference 
of Social Service Unions, a document 
in the preparation of which the 
Catholic Guild of England collabor- 
ated, the general principle is thus 
more completely stated: 

“ The contribution of Christianity 
to social reforms is of a spirit rather 
than of a cut-and-dried programme. 
It may appear vague and general 
when compared with the precise 
and detailed recommendations of the 
politician. But it certainly supplies 
two great needs for the lack of 
which so much effort in the past 
has been mischievous or barren; it 
gives us guiding principles and a 
compelling motive. 

“ ^1. No social work can ulti- 
mately be of value unless it is based 
on secure principles. Men must be 
clear as to their aims before they 
can profitably discuss methods. Our 
manner of treating our fellow-men 
will depend upon our opinions as to 


the nature and destiny of human 
personality. Our housing schemes 
will be conditioned by our Christian 
ideal of the family. The Christian 
spirit should affect man in all cir- 
cumstances of his life, and the ap- 
plication of Christian principles to 
social conditions will give a unique 
coherence and security to our work. 

“ ‘2. Moreover, the motives for 
social reform supplied by Christian- 


ity are of undisputed power. It is 
recognized that, however important 
legislation, whether restrictive or 
positive, may be, real social progress 
depends throughout upon the deep- 
ening and broadening of the sense 
of personal responsibility/ 

The Guiding Principles. 

“Christianity gives first of a^l 
‘guiding principles.’ Now, the most 
important practical guiding prin- 
ciples are the Ten Commandments. 
They apply not merely to individ- 
uals, but to corporations and unions 


and nations. ‘Thou shalt not steal’ 
condemns in advance depriving the 
laborer of a living wage, and also 
cheating, profiteering and usury. 
The command, ‘Thou shalt not lie’ 
condemns false advertising and false 
labelling of goods. The command 
‘Honor thy father and mother, and 
‘Thou shalt not commit adultery’ 
forbid in advance those economic 
conditions which condemn women 
and children to modes of life detri- 
mental to their morals or which pre- 
vent the maintenance of the privacy 
and security of sanitary Christian 
homes. ‘Thou shalt not kill’ forbids 
types of industry that are destruc- 
tive to body or soul. ‘Thou shalt 
not take the name of the Lord in 


vain’ should protect the worker 
against the profane or filthy speech 
of associates in industry. ‘Remem- 
ber that thou keep holy the Sabbath 
day’ condemns unnecessary servile 
work on Sunday. ‘Thou shalt not 
covet’ takes away the motive from 
social revolutionaries, and finally the 
first commandment brings industry 
face to face with the fundamental 
fact that the Creator is supreme and 
that His creatures must be treated 
with justice and respect. In the ap- 
( Continued on page 12.) 


As the New York Tribune Sees the Fight on the “Opeji Shop” Be- 
tween the National Chamber of Commerce and the A. F. of L. 




—and devote a little more attention to administering some discipline 
at home? 


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February 5, 1921 


THE CANADIAN RAILROADER 





Page 5 


Thinks Copy of Law Against Cor- 
ruption Should be Posted in 
Every Railway Car 


THE SICK CHILD. 


Child. 


O, mother, lay your hand on my brow! 
0, mother, mother, where am I now? 
Why is the room so gaunt and great? 
Why am I lying awake so late? 


Mother. Fear not at all: the night is still. 

Nothing is here that means you ill — 
Nothing but lamps the whole town through. 
And never a child awake but you. 


Child. 


Mother, mother, speak low in my ear, 
Some of the things are so great and near. 
Some are so small and far away, 

I have a fear that I capnot say. 

What have I done, and what do I fear. 
And why are you crying, mother, dear ? 


Mother. Out in the city, sounds begin. 

Thank the kind God, the carts come in! 

An hour or two more, and God is so kind. 

The day shall be blue in the window-blind. 
Then shall my child go sweetly asleep. 

And dream of the birds and the hills of sheep. 
— Robert Louis Stevenson. 


Wife 

letter. 


-“George, I want to see that 


Husband— “What letter, dear?^’ 
Wife — “That one you just opened, 
know by the handwriting it is 


sir! 


Husband — “Here it is, dear, 
is from your dressmaker.” 


Labor in Changing World 


(By Professor R. M. Mclver, $2.00. Pub- 
lished by J. M. Dent & Jons, 

Lid., Toronto). 


Editor, Canadian Railroader: 

I have been deeply interested in the articles you title as 
‘The Greatest Tragedy of the Road.” The title is right, from a 
railroadman’s point of view. 

In your first article you outline what befalls a man who 
becomes a victim of the courts. In the second you carefully 
place the blame where it has its origin. It is true that it takes 
two to make the deal, and it is always the smooth traveller who 
expects to get something for very little or nothing, who holds 
out the temptation to Mr. Conductor. In your third article I 
see you note that there is a law to deal with the sort of highly- 
respectable people who “fix” the conductor, and would it not be 
funny to see some of our nice business men with reputations 
beyond reproach, or some of our so-called examples of society, 
answering to a charge of this kind ? 

I was not aware that a law of this kind existed, and I would 
highly recommend that a copy of this law be posted in every 
railway car so that some of our slick, up-to-date gents who are 
going out to the country after a hard day at business, or a very 
strenuous sermon on right and wrong from their point of view, 
may be further enlightened, as I am sure that there are very few 
who know that they are a party to the theft, because in the past 
Mr. Conductor has been the goat. “Of course,” thinks the pas- 
senger, “the conductor is the only one who does any stealing, 
and he should steal, because if he doesn’t take what I offer him 
I will report him for something or other that he has not done, 
and with my influence I should be able to get him fired for not 
stealing.” 

Let me compliment you on your wonderful work. It is a 
great undertaking and I hope you will continue it until the 
railroad companies and the clean men in the Brotherhoods get 
results. You cannot air this too much. Open it up and let’s 
take a look at it from the inside and we will then see who is the 
most to blame. I wish the system could be changed so that 
someone else would handle the revenue of the company, and let 
someone else be the goat. Education on the subject is the only 
thing for the j)resent. What is wanted is an honest propaganda 
started by the company and the men to show all dangers and 
tempations, not the sending of men out to tempt railroaders 
and then catch them, or to teach them how to steal if they 
do not know how, but the sending of men who will preach 
honesty, and clean living. I am sure there would be better 
results. ’The present system is very unsatisfactory to everybody. 

— Railroad Conductor. 


from a woman, and you turned pale 
when you read it. Hand it here. 


It 


The theme of “Labor in a Chang- 
ing World,” is the question of the 
hour, “The place of labor in the 
industrial order.” Is it a commo- 
dity or is it a personality? The 
opening chapter challenges us to fac- 
ing of the fact of social change. Un- 
rest is not to be regarded as a mo- 
mentary or insignificant thing. “The 
unrest of to-day makes the civiliza- 
tion of to-morrow. Had there been 
no unrest in the stone age, the 
world would still be the stone age.” 
'The new attitude of Labor “de- 
mands a large share in prosperity 
and a voice in the control of in- 
dustry.” 

There is a good deal in the public 
press to-day about the importance 
of capital to the prosperity of the 
future, but no one is questioning its 
value. The question is who shall 
own the capital, the people’s means 
of livelihood, and the homes in 
which they live ? Shall these re- 
main the property of a few who 
by virtue of their possession can 
bring undue economic pressure upon 
their fellows or shall they gradually 
become socialized, so that the 
masses may become property own- 
ers? Professor Maciver points out 
that “so far as production is con- 
cerned capital might be owned by 
labor, by management, by the state, 
or by the community, and the posi- 
tion of the Socialist remains un- 
altered by that overworked argu- 
ment, that capital is as necessary 
as labor. 

The modern claim of labor is to 
personality and as such it should 
be granted “a share in control; and 
security of tenure.” It therefore, 
“demands a new position in indus- 
try; a new industrial order.” Lab- 
orers are not merely wage earners; 
they are producers, and all who 
share in the work of production 
whether with hand or brain are now 
being included in the term “labor.” 

The Professor is particularly good 
in his analysis of the wasteful ele- 
ments in the present industrial sys- 
tem. He finds seven factors that 
are contributing to inefficiency and 
loss in capitalistic control of indus- 
try. We think there are other 
wastes growing out of competition 
which could have been mentioned, 
such as the exploitation of natural 
resources, the effort to secure a 
market, cross freights, etc. He has, 
however, made it clear that the 
wastes now going on are enormous. 
If the wastes enumerated by the 
Professor were eliminated the cost 
of living would come down without 
a reduction of wages. More pub- 
licity should be given to this defect 
in our social order. Employers and 
employees should study the question 
from all sides. It is sure that 
wage reduction is a false economy 
and that by keeping wages up and 
eliminating waste the standard of 
living could be considerably raised. 

He courageously faces the ”Lions 
in the Path,” viz., the individuali^ic 


traditions of the law which make 
unionism appear a lawless thing. 
The entrenched power of consolidat- 
ed wealth, the economic oligarchy 
which controls the political machine 
and the agencies of public opinion. 
But new forces have already arisen 
which will prove to be the undoing 
of these monsters. In the recon- 
struction which is before us “Labor 
will have to cease to be mere ser- 
vant and capital mere owner.” They 
must be partners in production in- 
stead of one being a mere instru- 
ment to be handled by the other. 
This partnership can be best 
brought about by an efficient or- 
ganization of labor — “The real peril 
to the nation is in unorganized 
labor.” 

The book is sane, courageous and 
thought-provoking. It rightly de- 
serves the wide circulation which it 
is having, and should be read by 
everyone who is interested in the re- 
construction of industrial order. — 
R. W. Armstrong. 


“Your honor,” said the arrested 
chauffeur, “I tried to warn the man, 
but the horn would not work.” 

“Then why did you not slacken 
speed rather than run him down?” 

A light seemed to dawn upon the 
prisoner. “That’s one on me. I never 
thought of that.” 


The teacher was hearing the 
youthful class in mathematics. 

“Now,” she said, “in order to sub- 
tract things have to be in the same 
denomination. For instance, we 
couldn’t take three pears from Your 
peaches, nor eight horses from ten 
cats. Do you understand?” 

There was assent from the majori- 
ty of pupils. One little boy in the 
rear raised a timid hand. 

“Well, Bobby, what is it?” asked 
the teacher. 

“Please, teacher,” said Bobby, 
“couldn’t you take three quarts of 
milk from two cows?” 


COAL 


GEO. HALL COAL CO. 
of Canada, Ltd. 


211 McGill Steet, 
Montreal. 


THE OLD RELIABLE 



YARMOUTH. Nova Scjotia 






Page 6 


THE CANADIAN RAILROADER 


February 5, 1921 


Hazards of Railway Shops 

The Inspection News Bulletin, an American journal for 
underwriters, gives a report of underwriting value in each issue 
on some industry or locality. The December issue contained the 
following report on the M. K. and T. Railway shops at Parsons, 
Kansas : — 


T he principal work of these 
shops is the repairing and 
rebuilding of locomotives. 
The shops are modern and are well 
and favorably known among mech- 
anics for their pleasant working con- 
ditions and the endeavor on the part 
of the management to surround the 
work with all safety devices. There 
are very few serious accidents in the 
big shop, probably averaging no 
more than would occur among the 
same number of workers in other 
industries. 

The Machine Shop. 
Machinists: The machinists are 
employed in several different parts 
of the shop. A large number of the 
men are in the machine shop proper 
doing lathe work. Other men work 
on engines which are run into the 
shop and are dead. Other men are 
employed in a large, well-equipped 
tool room, in which practically all 
the tools used in the shops are made. 
In the air room the machinists re- 
pair and overhaul airbrakes and ac- 
cessories. The air room is regard- 
ed by the men as being a particular- 
ly desirable place because it is very 
clean and there are practically no 
accidents. The tool room is also 
well regarded in this respect. A few 
of the lathe jobs are very easy and 
considered as being in the na- 
ture of pensions. 

There is practically no danger in 
connection with work in the machine 
shops, the accidents being of a minor 
nature. The engines are dead, 
eliminating the hazard from that 
source. The lathes are modern and 
equipped with all safety devices. The 
greatest hazard comes from pieces 
of flying steel which sometimes 
causes a severe and painful injury. 

Machinists’ apprentices work di- 
rectly under the instructions of a 
machinist and are in no greater 
hazard. 

Machinists’ helpers are laborers 
employed to do the rough heavy 
work for the machinists and appren- 
tices. Some helpers acquire great 
skill, but do not rise to be machin- 
ists because they have never served 
an apprenticeship. Their work is 
more dangerous than that of a ma- 
chinist because they do the lifting 
and moving of heavy pieces. 

Boilermakers: There is a large, 
well-equipped boiler shop in connec- 
tion with the machine shops. Repair 
work on the boilers is done here. 
The work in this shop is very hard, 
these men usually being very strong 
and robust. 

On account of the continual noise 
in this shop, a number of the men 
appear to lose their hearing when 
they become middle aged. This 
renders them more liable to acci- 
dents. Although the shops are un- 
usually free from accidents, the oc- 
cupation is regarded as being more 


hazardous than that of a machinist. 

The boilermakers’ apprentices do 
the same work as the boilermakers 
themselves. The helpers, however, 
occupy the same comparative posi- 
tion as a machinist helper as they 
do the rough heavy work. Their 
work is regarded as proportionally 
more dangerous than that of a ma- 
chinist helper. 

Tinsmiths and Coppersmiths: 
Their work corresponds to the usual 
work of men in that trade. Most of 
their work is on dead engines in 
the large shops where there is very 
little danger. They also make tin 
and xjopper work for use on build- 
ings along the system, sometimes go- 
ing out to install it. 

The apprentices and helpers oc- 
cupy the same relation to the skill- 
ed worker that is usual to all trades 
in the shops. There are very few 
accidents of any nature to these 
men, such accidents as occur being 
of a minor nature. 

The Round House. 

In the round house the engines 
are cleaned and made ready for their 
next run. It is a more dangerous 
place to work than in a machine 
shop and is therefore not as well 
regarded by most of the men. Some 
of them, however, prefer to work 
here as they can put in more over 
time thus increasing their pay. 
Some machinists average over $300 
per month, but it requires long hours 
to do this. 

General: Many men working in 
or near a roundhouse are in a more 
dangerous occupation than those in 
the machine shops or boiler shops. 
Engines are constantly being moved 
in and out of the roundhouse and 
accidents are bound to occur. The 
men also frequently work on live 
engines which increases their hazard. 
Not a year goes by without a fatal 
accident in the roundhouse. As is 
usual to most trades the majority of 
the accidents occur to the unskilled 
men there. 

Machinists: Many machinists are 
employed in the roundhouse in mak- 
ing minor repairs which can be com- 
pleted in a few hours and do not 
necessitate the engine being taken 
to the big shop. These men fre- 
quently work on live engines and 
are in added danger from the en- 
gines which are moving in and out 
all the time. 

The machinists’ helpers are rela- 
tively in more danger than the ma- 
chinists themselves. 

Boilermakers and Helpers: These 
men are employed at the roundhouse 
in making minor repairs on engines 
that are still in service. Their work 
corresponds to the work given above 
with the exception that they are in 
peater danger because of conditions 
in the roundhouse. 

Hostlers: These men run the en- 
gines in and out of the roundhouse, 


see that they are supplied with coal, 
sand and water and run them to the 
place where the engine crews take 
charge of them. Their work is sim- 
ilar to that of a switch engineer, 
there being some danger in the 
work. 

Fire Builders: These men build 
the fires in the engines. It is not 
regarded as a desirable job. At one 
time colored men were largely em- 
ployed for this job, but white men 
are now being used. 

Engine Wipers: These are prac- 
tically all colored men, athough dur- 
ing the war an attempt was made to 
use colored women, but they were 
not a success. 

Boiler washers: Their work is 
very dirty and disagreeable with 
some danger attached to it, either 
from being scalded or from the en- 
gine being moved while they are 
working on it. Colored men are em- 
ployed for this work. 

Blacksmith Shop. 

There is a large, well-equipped 
blacksmith shop in connection with 
the machine shop. The work of these 
men is very similar to that of men 
in commercial shops with the ex- 
ception that they work on heavier 
forgings and use trip hammers more 
than is usual. 

Blacksmiths: The chief danger to 
blacksmiths come from burns, which 
are usually of a minor nature al- 
though occasionally a man gets 
burned around the eyes by sparks. 

Blacksmith Helpers: The work of 
the blacksmith apprentices and help- 


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Per Pound 

S 

Manufactured by 

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LIMITED 

Works; 

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Head Office; 

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MONTREAL. 


MACDONALDS 


PRINCE 

OF 

WALES 

Chewing^ 

Tobacco 


Canada’s 

Standard 

since 

1858 








February 5, 1921 


THE CANADIAN RAILROADER 


Page 7 


ers is very heavy, only the most ro- 
bust men being able to stand it for 
more than a few years. The heat 
near the big forges is hard on the 
men, being very intense, especially 
in the summer time. 

The Foundry. 

The shops maintain a fairly well 
equipped brass and iron foundry. 
The brass foundry is in continuous 
operation, the iron foundry being 
operated only intermittenly. The 
brass foundry is generally regarded 
as being above the iron foundry in 
safety and desirability. 

It is very seldom that there is 
a fatal accident in either foundry, 
although there are numerous minor 
accidents from small burns. Many 
of the men seem to have stomach 
trouble, which they attribute to 
drinking ice water after having be- 
come overheated. 

Most of the men now working in 
the foundries are middle-aged or old 
men. This is because the helpers 
in the foundries have very hard 
work and there are not many boys 
learning the trade now. Owing to 
the hard life, a helper will leave the 
foundry whenever he can get a posi- 
tion in the commercial foundries or 
in the other shops. 

Car Shops. 

Freight cars of all description are 
repaired and rebuilt in the large car 
shops. Most of the men working 
here are the poorer class of carpent- 
ers, many of whom have entered the 
shop as unskilled laborers, but in 
a short time acquire enough skill to 
become a car repairer or carpenter. 

Carpenters : Carpenters working 
in the car shop itself are in prac- 
tically no danger other than that of 
falling off a car or hurting them- 
selves with their own tools. 

They are exposed to another haz- 
ard, however, as many of them are 
required to perform work on the re- 
pair track. This is a dangerous 
place as the men work underneath 
the cars which are sometimes moved 
accidently, with consequent fatality. 
There are rules against switching 
engines operating on the repaif 
tracks during working hours, but 
sometimes they shunt in ‘Tjad order 
cars” without warning. This occurs 
when the signal flags blow down 
or are not seen and when they 
*^kick” in cars under these conditions, 
someone is liable to get hurt or 
killed. 

These men are also exposed to 
some danger in changing the trucks 
and wheels on the cars. Sometimes 
the men are sent out to repair dam- 
aged cars on a siding and occasion- 
ally accidents will occur in the work 
because they do not have the proper 
equipment to handle? it. 

Everything considered, the men in 
the car department are subjected to 
a greater hazard from accidents of a 
serious nature than the men in the 
machine shops or boiler shops. 

Other Carpenters: Carpenters are 
employed in nearly all the depart- 
ments of the shops and outside of 
the car shops the work is no more 
dangerous than that of the average 
carpenter. Occasionally they have 
minor accidents while working on 
engine cabs or in the round house. 


GOOD THINGS ARE MADE TO BE EATEN 

Montreal Dairy Company Limited 

BUTTER SWEET CREAM ICE CREAM 


Paint Shops. 

The men employed in the paint 
shops are under no unusual hazard 
when they are working on engines in 
the machine shops or roundhouse 
above. Occasionaly these men go 
out on the road to paint stations 
where the risk is the same as that 
of any commercial painter. 

Many of the men do high grade 
work, a good painter being required 
as a coach painter. Some of them 
do gold leaf work, putting numbers 
and names on engines. The men 
working in the shops are practically 
free from accidents. 

Reclamation Plant. 

In this plant all broken and worn 
material is worked over in order to 
salvage anything that can be used. 
About 300 men are employed here, 
many of them doing nothing more 
than sorting scrap. In this depart- 
ment the danger is slight, the usual 
accidents being cuts and bruises 
from dropping small pieces of iron. 
The only unusual hazard is the use 
of big trip hammers in breaking up 
large pieces of irOn. 

Small Shops. 

There are many small shops em- 
ploying three or four men on special 
work, and the work is usually safe. 
These range from pattern makers at 
the foundry to men who have charge 
of the oil warehouses. There are 
usually only two or three men on 
each shift. 


ANTI UNION PRETENCE 

DENOUNCED BY CLERGY. 
Methodist Federation for Social 
Service Scores “Open Shop” 
Campaign. 

“In the light of what has hap- 
pened in the steel industry, where 
the so-called American principle of 
employment has been fully demon- 
strated over a period of years, it 
also seems quite clear to us that the 
success of the present ^open shop’ 
campaign would mean the establish- 
ment of a closed shop — closed 
against union labor, and would re- 
turn large numbers of wage earners 
to the living standards of sweated 
industries,” is one of the strong de- 
clarations by the Methodist federa- 
tion for social service in a state- 
ment recently issued, which con- 
tinues : 

“In the light of what is now hap- 
pening in certain local mining dis- 
tricts in West Virginia, we regard 
it as certain that the consummation 
of this ‘open shop’ campaign will 
perpetuate and increase chaos, an- 
archy and warfare in our industrial 
life. 

“The leaders of this ‘open shop’ 
campaign announce themselves as 
champions of the rights and free- 
dom of the unorganized man, but 
the kind of freedom and protection 
that the so-called ‘individual rights’ 
policy actually gives to the unor- 
ganized man can be ascertained by 
reading the report of the inter- 
church movement on the steel strike. 

“In the steel industry this labor 
policy, conceived in the same spirit 
as the present ‘open shop’ campaign 
and defended on the same ground 
of right and principle, has meant the 
destruction of all labor organization, 


long hours, low standards of living 
and the denial of civil liberties to 
entire communities. 

“The practical results of this 
‘right’ of a powerful corporation to 
deal with wage workers as individ- 
uals do not justify it as either a 
right or a principle. 

“This movement is the embodi- 
ment of a determination repeatedly 
expressed in war time by certain 
leaders of finance and industry to 
‘put labor in its place after the 
war.’ ” 


Mr. Bell, the inventor of the tele- 
phone, is in this country. At a meet- 
ing of subscribers it was decided 
that no action should be taken, as 
it was not altogether his fault. — 
The Passing Show (London). 


“No, sir,” cried the irate parent, 
“my daughter can never be yours.” 

“I don’t want her to be my daugh- 
ter,” interrupted the young man, “I 
want her to be my wife.” — Edin- 
burgh Scotsman. 


LOCOMOTIVE SIDE FRAMES, WHEEL CENTRES, 
ETC. — CAR COUPLERS — DRAFT ARMS — BOLST- 
ERS— SWITCH STANDS — RAILWAY TRACKWORK 
OF ALL TYPES OF CONSTRUCTION. 

■ 

STIEISL MDEMBMISS 

ORffilTlSl) 

Transportation Montreal 


WAITING FOR THE 
DOCTOR 


When a man lies sick, waiting for the Doctor, 
he usually does some serious thinking. 

One of the things he is likely to think about on 
such occasions is life assurance. He is more apt 
to realize then just what life assurance means 
for his family. 

But he can’t get life assurance at such a time. 
He must get it when he is well. 

If you are well to-day, take a policy while you 
can. To-morrow you may be waiting for the 
Doctor. 


SUN LIFE ASSURANCE 
COMPANY of CANADA 

Head Office: MONTREAL 



Page 8 


THE CANADIAN RAILROADER 


February 5, 1921 


Ct)e Canadian JElatlroalicr 

WEEKLY 

The Official Organ of 

The Fifth Sunday Meeting Association of Canada 

ORGANIZED SEPTEMBER 1916 

Incorporated under Dominion Letters Patent. 

April. 1919. 

J. A. WOODWARD, President - C.P.R. Conductor 

J. N. POTVIN, Vice-President . - C.P.R. Train Dispatcher 

W. F. BERRY, Scc.-Treasurer - - G.T.R. Conductor 


BXBCUTIVE COMMITTEE>-S. DALE, C.P.R. Engineer; D. TRINDALL, 
O.T.R. Leeemetive Engineer; J HOGAN, C.P.R. Asst. Roadmaster; ARCHIE DU- 
FAULT, C.P.R. Conductor; E. McGILLY. C.P.R. Locomotive Fireman W. T. 
DAVIS, General Yard Master; W. PARLEY, C.P.R. Locomotive Engineer; M. 
JAMBS. C.P.R. Engineer; S. PUGH, G.T.R. Conductor; Wm. PARSONS, C.G.R. 
Agent; 

The Canadian Railroader was founded by railroaders, is 
largely supported by railroaders, and is issued in the interest 
of railroaders and all other workers by hand or brain. 


Yaarlj subscription: $3.00; Single Copies: 10 cents 


Published weekly by 

THE CANADIAN RAILROADER LIMITED 

316 LAOAUCHETIERE ST. W., Coraer Beaver Hall Hill. MONTREAL 
Telephone i MAIN 6222 
17 

GEORGE PIERCE, Editor KENNEDY CRONE. Managing Editor 


Stepping Bacl^wards 

T he Gazette of January 28 says that at London, Ont., the 
previous day, “the more radical section of the Social Service 
Council of Canada met some opposition at the closing session 
of the annual convention when, in discussing the report of the 
committee on industrial life and immigration, exception was taken 
by a Avoman speaker to the assufnption that the workers had 
more right to consideration than the employers. Among points 
which it was proposed the Council should favor as matters for 
immediate legislative attention was mentioned the protection of 
the right of workers to free speech, free assembly, freedom to 
organize and to send whom they wished to represent them. 

“Mrs. Laing, representing the local Council of Women, Tor- 
onto, urged that the unorganized worker had an equal right to 
the support and sympathy of the Council, and in this she was 
supported by Archdeacon Inglis, of Toronto, who contended that 
the employer should be equally considered by the social worked. 
Canon Vernon and Rev. Ernest Thomas argued that they were 
only proposing to give labor rights that had long been enjoyed 
by capital. Finally, the paragraph was amended in such a way 
that it was rendered non-committal.” 

Organized labor had been coming to the notion during the 
past few years that the Social Service Council, which is largely 
made up of representatives of non-Roman Catholic churches and 
various welfare organizations such as ttie Y. M. C. A. and the 
Y. W. C. A., was a serious student of labor affairs, and being so, 
had inevitably seen the wisdom and justice of the elementary 
principles of the labor movement, even if it still had an open 
mind on some of the manners of working out these principles. 

If the general declarations of the bulk of organized labor on 
social and industrial questions were compared with the declara- 
tions of the churches represented in the Council, and the Roman 
Catholic Church as well, there would be found a striking parallel 
of thought. Prohibition is probably the only issue on which there 
is notable cleavage; most of the churches seek prohibition, while 
most trade unions seeks temperance instead. One wonders if 
anti-laborists realize that in attacking moderate Canadian labor 
they are also by inference attacking the moderate element in 
Canadian churches. It might be a good thing if someone with 
the means would make a survey of the social and industrial atti- 
tudes of labor and the churches and print records of them to- 
gether in a pamphlet for general distribution. Such a pamphlet 
might reveal to those who regard labor leaders as radical and 
insane, the awful truth that lots of church spokesmen are just 
as radical and insane on the same subject. 


It was not always thus. The labor movement has doubtless 
had a good deal to do with inspiring the churches to a new vision. 
But let bygones be bygones. 

In view of the change which has come over church thought, 
it is surprising to learn that there was enough opposition at the 
annual meeting of the Social Service Council to render abortive 
an effort to have the Council favor, as matters for immediate 
legislative attention, “the right of workers to free speech, free 
assembly, freedom to organize and to send whom they wished 
to represent them.” 

These are rights as clear to-day as the right to vote or the 
right to send a child to school, and it is not necessary to put up 
a case for them in these columns. The surprise is that anyone 
tried to put up a case against them in the Social Service Council. 
The argument of Mrs. Laing, that the unorganized workers had 
an equal right to the support and sympathy of the Council, is 
quite good, but it should be remembered that the organized 
workers are the only visible articulation of the unorganized 
workers, and that the greatest champions of the unorganized are 
the organized. When organized workers ask for the rights 
named, they ask for rights which they have already in some 
measure won for themselves by their own unaided efforts, and 
which they want to see granted to the unorganized workers. The 
surest way to give support and sympathy to unorganized workers 
is to give these things through organized bodies willing and fitted 
to make the best use of them. If Mrs. Laing would really like 
the rights to be granted to unorganized workers, she should 
support the organized workers asking for them. If she is 
opposed to granting the rights to any workers, then she is stand- 
ing in the way of progress, causing, maybe, a little delay in the 
traffic but liable to be run over in the process. 

Archdeacon Inglis in his contention that the employer should 
be equally considered by the Council, was well answered by Canon 
Vernon and Rev. Ernest Thomas, when they said that they were 
only proposing to give to labor rights that had long been enjoyed 
by capital. 

Perhaps the Gazette report on account of its brevity did not 
cover all the important angles of the discussion. On the face 
of things, as looked at through the report, the Council took a 
jump backwards that will puzzle a lot of persons within and 
without church and social welfare circles. 

— Kennedy Crone. 



See ’im? Ruined by the peace, ’e was; used to paint ’ouse-to-let 
signs, ’e did!” — The Bystander, London. 


February 5, 1921 


THE CANADIAN RAILROADER 


Page 9 


Prosecuting Repression 

E ven the social reformers are beginning to object to too 
much in the way of censoring and, in general, to the sys- 
tem of appointing single individuals or small boards, to act 
in an arbitrary manner with the interests of business or with the 
liberty of the individual. At the annual convention of the 
Social Service Council of Canada, held at London, Ont., recently, 
the question of improper vaudevilles was discussed; but when 
the proposal was made that there should be a stricter censor- 
ship, a Methodist minister entered a protest, asserting that in 
his opinion there was too much of that method of repression 
which depended upon the individual taste. He felt that it would 
be safer to allow the public to judge and to have those who were 
interested in suppressing such shows, take action locally. Finally 
the convention adopted a resolution which called upon its local 
units to exercise a sort of voluntary censorship by calling the 
attention of the police to anything that was against morals and 
good taste. 

The same principle was seen when the question of marriage 
certificates was discussed. The proposal was to place the in- 
tending parties under the power of a medical officer of health 
Jor passing ; but one speaker pointed out that medical men were 
just as prone to error or persuasion as any other profession or 
calling, and that this step would mean not only that they had 
power to kill but also to curtail human liberty. There are to-day 
many people who object to the medical profession — the large 
body of Christian Scientists and others who believe in what they 
consider more natural methods of healing. It would be obviously 
unfair to place such people under the jurisdiction of this pro- 
fession, just as much as to place a child of an agnostic or a Jew 
under a Christian minister for •ducation. 

The one principle that social reformers need to recognize 
— and many of them have already recognized it — is that there 
must be a finality in the matter of what may be called prosecut- 
ing repression. If the rendering of some action a penal offence, 
or inaction for that matter, were carried out at the rate some 
people propose,' in two or three centuries the majority of the 
race might either be paying fines or going to jail. The real 
objective of the social reformer and worker should be to educate 
the individual and the community up to what they set as their 
ideals, and in this connection it is of interest to note that some- 
thing on these lines is being done by the temperance advocates 
in the west, who are discovering that it is better to have pro- 
hibition in this way than with the butt-end of a revolver. 

— Caedmon. 


What is Culture ? 

mere acquisition of knowledge is not culture,” writes 
X Shailer Mathews, Professor of Historical and Compara- 
tive Theology in the University of Chicago. “The pro- 
fessional scholar too often finds in learning nothing but the 
weapon for his conflict with circumstances. . . . Education 

that does not change the fibre of a man’s character, that does 
not awaken some love of that which is truly beautiful, that does 
not make a man into a gentleman, makes vulgarity doubly vulgar. 

“Nor is culture a mere veneer of absent-minded interest in 
things we have been told should interest us. To talk readily at 
a reception about the latest novel; to parade a smattering ,of 
Greek, or Latin, or politics ; to know when to leave one visiting 
card and when two ; to be able to tell without the aid of a clock 
when a call has reached its end ; to be indiscriminately interested 
in pictures, gowns, music. University Settlements, and all other 
good works : this is not culture. But to seek to train the deepest 
sympathies of one’s life ; to choose that which is noble and that 
which is beautiful; to learn to despise cynicism and to believe 
that the world is the abode of purity and goodness as well as of 
evil; to study with such sincerity that smug respectability be 
felt unworthy a struggle; to feel in life the upspringing of 
loftier ambitions and sympathies ; to be ready to stake one’s life 
that truth is more than victory, be the triumphal procession 
never so long — in a word to transmute knowledge into love: 
this is culture.” 

Will our university graduates in general, and the members 
of our Smart Set in particular, please note? 

— George Daniels. 


Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey 
Where wealth accumulates and men decay. 

— Oliver Goldsmith. 


Sir William Goode. — I do not wish to appear to be an alarmist, 
but if the Allies can hold out no prospect of means for continued 
existence, then I fear we must be prepared for an outbreak that 
would be beyond the control of any authority that might be left 
to Austria. It is common knowledge that the Bolshevik! have 
made elaborate preparations to utilize Vienna as a centre of 
activity and propaganda. 

Frederick A. Wallis. — ^The problem of the immigrant, both 
socially and economically, can only be met by scientific selection, 
intelligent distribution and broad assimilation. 

Cicely Hamilton. — We cannot afford to leave idle and derelict 
any force that may control — however slightly — the impulse to 
destroy which is the natural expression of the mass-mind stirred 
to emotion. Half-a-dozen years of mass-emotion and mass- 
action have laid great parts of Europe in ruins and shaken the 
foundations whereon human society is builded — and the process 
of destruction appears likely to renew itself indefinitely. 

Rear Admiral William S. Sims. — ^The world won't stand for 
another war. The world can’t stand another war. And if we 
don’t keep on nourishing the sentiment that was aroused for the 
Allies during the war, we are going to get into trouble. Per- 
sonally, I believe in the initiative being taken by the English- 
speaking people. 


THE CANADIAN RAILROADER is a carrier and 
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the common people. 


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Page 10 


THE CANADIAN RAILROADER 


February 5, 1921 


Trade Unionism Amongst 

Bank Clerks 


{Front our own correspondent), 

Glasgow. 

A n important effect of a labor 
surplus on the market is 
that it gives an employer the 
opportunity to select the best work- 
er, so that he is able to get the 
fittest man at the lowest competi- 
tive rate. The datum line of wages 
for the best man tends to be the 
minimum of subsistence. The unfor- 
tunates of inferior capacity have to 
get along as best they can in a 
stunted, pauperized fashion. 

It only required a period of high 
prices through bad harvests, bad 
trade, or war to create widespread 
unemployment and want. Fortun- 
ately the revolt against these con- 
ditions did not 
express itself in 
blood shed in 
this country, as 
it did e 1 s e - 
where. A bet- 
ter econo m i c 
solution might 
have been 
found, but see- 
James Gibson ing their weak- 
ness in the mar- 
gin of unemployed, men combined 
together to control the entrance to 
their trade, and to bargain collec- 
tively for higher wages and better 
conditions of service. 

Mr. Arthur Birnie, M.A., lectur- 
ing in the Marischal College last 
month, said, ‘The blame for the 
existing position really lay with 
those statesmen of the 18th and 19th 
centuries who, by want of policy, 
made trade unionism necessary. 
They sowed the wind, and now they 
of the present time were likely to 
reap the whirlwind.” 

The general law of wages has 
operated against bank employees, 
there having been a plentiful sup- 
ply of men. Many fathers, and es- 
pecially many mothers, wanted their 
sons to be in a bank, where they 
would have a gentleman’s life from 
10 to 3 (sic). In later years a more 
serious service has been demanded 
from men who were more dependent 
on their salaries, but there has been 
little improvement towards an eco- 
nomic wage for the rank and file. 
They were often forced td eke out 
their living by supplementary of- 
fices. The law was made to operate 
further against bank employees in 
Scotland by the evident arrange- 
ment of bank directors not to com- 
pete for clerks in each other’s em- 
ploy. Occasionally there is compe- 
tition for a manager, and in obedi- 
ence to this law his “wages” rise. 
The only competitive demand for a 
Scotch clerk is from “furth of Scot- 
land”; he must become an exile. 
Thus it transpires that the wonder- 
ful services of bankmen avail them 
nothing. Their salaries and condi- 
tions of service are unrelated to 
their monumental fidelity, their 
amazing accfuracy, and the risks 
they carry. 


The disability under which bank- 
men have labored has expressed it- 
self in many ways. They are unfit- 
ted for other services and become 
more “tied” to their banks each year 
of service. They are thus unable 
to meet their managers on even 
terms and state their case. 

If salaries were meagre, then 
pensions based on them must be in- 
adequate. Worse still, they were of- 
ten a matter of grace and not an 
inalienable right. Political freedom 
has been discouraged. It is unfor- 
tunately true that the incentive to 
rise has been diminished by agencies 
being given to untrained outsiders 
while the work and responsibility 
have been shouldered by bank 
tradesmen on the minimum scale. 

It is true that salaries have been 
paid for holidays and sickness, but 
as an offset balance time and over- 
time are unpaid. It is also true that 
managements and staffs have, by 
their combined efforts, created an- 
nually the funds from ‘which the 
capital fund is renewed, property 
and securities are depreciated, sal- 
aries and dividends are paid and 
rest funds built up. 

The great rise in cost of living 
during the latter years of the war, 
without any adequate increase of 
salaries, reduced the greatest num- 
ber of bankmen to abject starvation. 
All over the world staffs came to- 
gether to their accustomed centres 
for mutual support. The movement 
was too universal and widely sup- 
ported to be the work of “a few 
agitators.” It can only be accounted 
for by widespread suffering driv- 
ing men desperately from their tra- 
ditional isolation into the paths 
trodden out by the manual work- 
ers before them. Bankmen formed 
trade unions, but their pride did not 
allow them to call “ a spade a 
spade.” They designated them guilds 
or associations. In South Africa, 
Australia, Canada, Ireland, England, 
Scotland, France, Germany, and 
Constantinople the Cosmopolitan, 
the movement found spontaneous ex- 
pression. 

It is a mutual benefit for the 
smooth working of the profession 
when the chosen association of the 
staffs is recognized by the manage- 
ment side as representing the staffs 
in all matters requiring intercom- 
munication. Unfortunately there 
has been stout opposition to this 
requirement, and in some cases the 
management side has yielded only 
under strike pressure. In Australia, 
under a Labor Government, the 
association was automatically re- 
cognized on its formation. In Eng- 
land and Scotland, while the man- 
agement sides can associate in the 
British Bankers Association without 
imperilling their individual under- 
takings, they are unable to recog- 
nize the right of their staffs to 
associate in furtherance of their in- 
terests. 



It was speedily recognized by 
bankmen that the Whitley Joint 
Councils, recommended by the Gov- 
ernment, were particularly suitable 
for their profession where the staff 
side is hardly inferior to the other 
in culture and technical skill. These 
councils mark a new epoch in trade 
unionism. They provide machinery 
to cover the whole profession, while 
the needs of separate banks are met 
in detail. Instead of two armed 
camps opposing each other with hos- 
tile intent the idea of co-operation 
between the parties is introduced. 
Everyone will gain from adopting 
the scheme which will tend to good- 
will, efficiency and national well- 
being. The latest legislation under 
the Unemployment Insurance Act, 
1920, has in view the existence of 
association between the two sides of 
industry. The management side will 
be in recurrent disadvantage as long 
as it endeavors to retard the na- 
tural evolution of national welfare. 

The eternal salary question is the 
centre of discussion. The banks re- 
fuse to consider scales of salaries 
on the ground that they would not 
have the opportunity to reward 
merit. The scales put forward by 
the unions are invariably minimum 
scales, so that there would still be 
opportunity to discriminate, while a 
living wage would be ensured to the 

staffs. 

In practice we find that a scale 
has always been in operation in the 
banks. The point of difference is 
that discrimination took the form 
of dropping a “rise” for the erring 
one rather than special recogni- 
tion of the meritorious. 

In cannot be maintained that the 
larger increases given in six years 
since 1914 are due to proportion- 
ately increased service as compared 
with six years prior to 1914. Ob- 
viously the increased standard was 
based on the increased cost of liv- 
ing, which knocks the bottom out of 
the case that salaries' are awarded 
according to merits. The banks fre- 
quently discriminate between ser- 
vice in town and country; between 
married men and single men. Some 
banks frankly publish scales, e.g., 
Union, North, and Lon^n Joint City 
and Midland Banks. 

The association holds that the 
position of the women in the banks 
is very unsatisfactory. Many wo- 
men have now worked for five years 
and are still on the temporary staff. 
If they are to be retained their posi- 
tion should be regularized. It is 
unworthy of the banks and unfair 



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to the women to continue them on 
terms of uncertainty. 

When the full force of the eco- 
nomic laws is realized the best 
minds among ^areholders, direc- 
tors and managers will welcome the 
small measure of safeguard which 
union of staffs can give them, and 
that they will urge the recognition 
of the associations and frank meet- 
ing in open council. The banks have 
everything to gain from inducing 
manliness and self-reliance among 
their staffs. Instead of the whirl- 
wind they may reap security and 
good-will which, like mercy, will 
“Bless him who gives 
“And him who receives.” 

— James Gibson. 


CANADA’S LEADING HOTEL 



THE WINDSOR 

DOMINION SQUARE, - - - MONTREAL 

EUROPEAN PLAN EXCLUSIVELY. 

trally located In the heart of the Shopping and Theatrical District. Headquar- 
for Conventions, Banq^uets. Private Dances, Receptions and Social Events. 
SERVICE UNSURPASSED. 


Further particulars on application. 


JOHN DAVIDSON, Mansgar 



February 5, 1921 


THE CANADIAN RAILROADER 


Page 11 


The Stride in Nova Scotia 

A Statement by Officers of Railroad Organizations 

The strike of the engineers, firemen, conductors and brake- 
men employed by The Dominion Iron & Steel Company and the 
Nova Scotia Steel & Coal Company continues at this writing. 

The story of the strike was explained in detail in the issue 
of January 22nd, but in order to emphasize the arbitrary action 
of the two corporations and the comparatively low wage paid 
to the employees affected, it is believed a further review will be 
interesting and timely. 

The employees of the companies affected endeavored to 
secure a wage rate that would be equal to, or closer to, the going 
rate paid for like service by the railways than was being paid by 
the companies approached. The representatives of the em- 
ployees proposed that a Board of Investigation be appointed, 
composed of the six railway officials representing the Canadian 
railroads on Canadian Railway Board of Adjustment No. 1, and 
agreed to abide by whatever decision might be rendered by that 
Board, but the Nova Scotia Steel & Coal Company, with which 
rrtpgotiations were being directly conducted, refused to have any- 
thing to do with the proposition. When all of the efforts of the 
employees to bring about an adjustment of their differences 
failed, application was made to the Department of Labor under 
date of November 1st, 1920, for a Board of Conciliation and In- 
vestigation under the provisions of the Industrial Disputes In- 
vestigation Act, 1907, and under date of November 10, 1920, 
the employees were advised by the Registrar that the property 
in question did not come under the provisions of the Act, 
although it has been declared to be a railw’ay by the Attoimey 
General’s Department of the Provincial Government, of Nova 
Scotia. 

The final effort on the part of the men and its failure to 
secure an investigation and possible adjustment of their demands 
left them without further recourse, except to leave the service 
of the Company. It was quite apparent that if negotiations 
could not be concluded with The Nova Scotia Steel & Coal Com- 
pany, recognized as a railway, it would be futile to attempt to 
do anything of the kind with The Dominion Iron & Steel Com- 
pany. Therefore, in the firm belief that there was every justi- 
fication for their decision, the employees of these companies 
decided that a strike be declared against both of them on Novem- 
ber 22, 19';’.0, which strike is still in effect. 

The Sydney & Louisburg Railway and the Cumberland Rail- 
way & Coal Company are owned and controlled by The Dominion 
Iron & Steel Company. November 29, 1920, the yard and road 
employees of the Sydney & Louisburg Railway were conceded 
standard wage rates. December 7, 1920, the same classes of 
employees on the Cumberland Railway & Coal Company were 
allowed standard rates of pay. Bear in mind that the engineers, 
firemen, conductors and yardmen of The Dominion Iron & Steel 
Company, the Sydney & Louisburg Railway, and the Cumberland 
Railway & Coal Company are all working for the same corpora- 
tion, namely : The Dominion Coal Company. Railroad employees 
of The Dominion Iron & Steel Company perform exactly the same 
classes of switching service as other railroad men handling cars 
in yards perform, while the work is more hazardous because of 
the dangerous conditions incident to inside work in steel indus- 
tries, and because of inadequate and unsafe equipment. 

The rates of pay will not bear comparison. Standard hourly 
rates in yard services are: Engineers 88c., firemen 70c., con- 
^ductors 88c., brakemen 81c., with time and one-half for over- 
time after eight hours. The hourly rates paid by the Dominion 
Iron & Steel Company for yard service are : Engineers 64c., fire- 
men 50c., conductors 60c., brakemen 50c., without extra com- 
pensation for overtime. The rates paid by the Nova Scotia Steel 
& Coal Company in yard service are: Engineers 57c., / firemen 
44c., conductors 50c., brakemen 44c., with no extra allowances 
for overtime. The employees of the two steel corporations were 
on a 12 hour day basis. Taking, by comparison, the standard 
hourly rates with time and one-half for overtime, and the rates 
paid by the steel corporations without time and one-half after 
eight hours, it will be seen that the wage rates paid by the two 
corporations involved approximate 50 per cent of the standard 
rates paid on Canadian railways. 

Reference to the earnings of these two corporations will 
show that they were enormously increased during the period of 
the war. They also will show that during that period dividend 
allowances on common and in some instances on preferred stock, 
were increased, and that they have not decreased since that time. 

Wages in every other class of service in Canada were con- 
siderably increased, and in addition to wage increases there was 
a general decrease in the hours of service to the effect that a 


uniform eight hour day became generally operative with time 
and one-half for all time worked in excess of eight hours. The 
men in railway service on the properties of the two steel cor- 
porations involved made request for increased rates of pay and 
the shorter work day, but they were denied, and believing that 
they were wholly justified in attempting to force the issue, they 
decided that rather than to continue to work under such dis- 


advantageous conditions they would leave the service of their 
employers and take their chances of forcing the demanded and 
justifiable increase in wages and reduction in the number of 
hours, before which overtime rates should become effective. 

These employees, as has been stated, were required to work 
on a 12 hour day basis. Standard railway conditions reqquire 
men to work eight hours a day with pay at time and one-half 
rates for all time worked in excess of eight hours. It is herein 
shown that the hourly rates paid the steel corporation employees 
were far below standard, and without time and one-half for 
overtime their wages were approximately 50 per cent of the 
standard rates, which is an injustice that should appeal to every 


citizen of Canada. 

The steel corporations set up the claim that the pjen were not railway 
employees and in consequence were not entitled to the same consideration 
as railway employees. Other steel companies in Canada, the largest of 
which is the Algoma Steel Corporation, paid the standard going rate for 
railway employees until after the strike of the steel corporations in Nova 
Scotia prompted them to ask a reduction in wages following an agreement 
made November 1st, 1920, in which the Algoma Steel Company agreed to 
maintain standard rates and service conditions for one year. 

This is one of the lamentable after-effects of the arbitrary refusal of 
the Nova Scotia steel companies to deal justly with their employees. 

At the beginning of the strike the steel companies protested vigorously 
through the press that the men had not treated them fairly, that they did 
not give them sufficient opportunity to get ready for the strike. The steel 
companies did not expect their men would leave the service. They de- 
pended upon the rather isolated location of their plants, and the fact that 
the majority of the men interested were married and had their homes at 
Sydney and Sydney Mines, and that it would be almost impossible for them 
to go elsewhere in search of other employment. 

To state the case plainly will be to say that they believed they had the 
advantage and they forced the strike. The men were fully justified in 
leaving the service at a time that would place them in a position of advant- 
age if it were possible to do so. . . ^ ^ 

A review of the earnings of The Dominion Iron & Steel Company will 
show that during the period of the war its earnings were greater by almost 
double than they had ever been before, and that in 1920 ,covering a period 
of world-wide business depression, their net earnings still amounted to five 
and one-half millions. The dividends on preferred stocks were not de- 
creased, while the dividends on common stock for 1920 exceed by $700,000 
the amount paid in dividends on common stock in 1919, although the net 
operating profits were $3,000,000 less in 1920. In 1917 the Company paid 
a deferred preferred dividend of $350,000. « , 

This should convince readers that while The Dominion Steel Corpora- 
tion is wholly determined in paying a ruinous wage rate, it is equally de- 
termined to maintain better than the going rate of its dividends both com- 


mon and preferred. _ , 

The Nova Scotia Steel & Coal Company shows pretty much the same 
situation, although its report for 1920 has not as yet been published. It 
shows, however, that in 1917 and 1918 the operating profits were, for 
1917, $3,069,449, in 1918 they were $3,535,525, while in 1919, when the be- 
ginning of the business depression was being felt, the operating profits were 
$2,193,305. The same report shows that the net profits for 1917 were 
$1 340 478, for 1918 $1,716,492, and for 1919 $1^029,877. The dividends ]^id 
in 1919 exceed by $10,000 the total amounts paid in 1917 and 1918. The 
dividend on common stock in 1917 was $562,500, which does not include a 
stock dividend paid November 30, 1917, of $2,590,000, which is reflected in 
the common dividend paid in 1918 and 1919 amounting to $750,000, almost 
$200,000 on which dividend has been paid on what amounts to watered 
stock created in 1917. How much of these returns are on actual investment 
and how much on water we cannot say. 

This showing of the financial position and trasactions of these two 
corporations, coupled with the fact that up until some three years ago 
engineers, firemen, conductors and trainmen employed by The Dominion 
Iron & Steel Company and by The Nova Scotia Steel & Coal Company were 
paid wage rates almost exactly the same as those paid to similar employees 
on the Sydney & Louisburg Railway and on the Cumberland Coal & Railway 
Company, should be positive proof of the unfairness of both the corpora- 
tions involved toward the employees who are on strike. ^ 

Let is be borne in mind that the men suffered their disadvantages and 
inconveniences for very many years, that there was no disposition on the 
part of the companies to adjust the many injustices that had been practiced 
against the men, that there was a most determined opposition against 
giving the men the eight hour day, the standard wage rate and service 
conditions that were in operation on the Canadian railways, to all of which 
the men felt they were entitled and in proof of that belief, after all efforts 
for adjustment had failed, they left the service of their employers. 

If ever there was a strike in the Dominion for which there was provoca- 
tion and justification, this strike of employees of the Nova Scotia steel 
corporations is the one. These statements are truthfully made without 
any disposition to misrepresent the reasons for leaving the seriace, or for 
unfairly influencing public opinion. Every statement can be substantiated 
by proof. These questions are placed before the Canadian public f^i^^ly 
and squarely so that there may be no misunderstanding of the atti^de of 
the reasons or the purposes of the employees that led them to leave Hie ser- 
vice of The Dominion Iron & Steel Company and The Nova Scotia Steel & 
Coal Company, November 22, 1920. 


(Signed) JAMES MURDOCK, (Signed) GEO. K. WARK, 

Vice-President, Vice-President, 

Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen. Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen 

& Enginemen. 

Also representipp: The Brotherhood 
of Locbm'otrve Engineers. 


blHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIimtHIIHIitlllHimtllHIIIIIIHIHHIIIIIIIIHHIHHiimHimiiiiittiiiiHiHiiHtliiiitiiiHiHiitiiiijtimiiiimit. 


Page 12 


THE CANADIAN RAILROADER 


February 5, 1921 



OTTAWA PREACHER URGED 
WOMEN AND GIRL STORE 
CLERKS TO JOIN UNION. 

(Continued from page 4) 
plication of guiding principles to 
the Christianizing of industry. Cath- 
olics can make a special contribu- 
tion. . . . 

A Wrong Impression. 

“One of the fundamental fallacies 
upon which our present industrial 
system rests is the implied assump- 
tion that those engaged in industry, 
whether employees or capitalists, 
are but factors, not persons. Be- 
cause labor has been considered 
merely as any other raw material to 
be bought at the lowest market ir- 
respective of the effect on the char- 
acter of the workers,, we have, again 
to quote Leo XIII., ‘misery and 
wretchedness pressing so heavily 
and unjustly at this moment on the 
vast majority of the working 
classes.' , . . 

“The foundation of our present 
industrial system is the wage-sys- 
tem. If industry is to be Christian- 
ized, the wage system must be Chris- 
tianized. Now the Christian prin- 
ciples as regards the wage-system 
are these four: 

“1. The wage system in itself is 
not unjust or immoral. 

“2. The wage system is not, like 
marriage, essential to human life. 

“3. The wage system as it works 
out at present ‘lays upon the teem- 
ing masses of the laboring poor a 
yoke little better than that of slav- 
ery itself.' 

“4. The wage system must there- 
fore be mended, or failing that 
ended by substituting another sys- 
tem which will not violate the moral 
law. 

Wage Not Only System. 

“The Catholic Church has never 
proclaimed the wage system the only 
possible system, or the best sys- 
tem. . . . 

“When I pay a man a wage, I do 
not buy him. I buy temporarily the 
use of his service which he freely 
hires out to me. His human rights 
and dignity may neither be bought 
nor sold, as they are in slavery and 
prostitution. Neither is it permitted 
to offer, or freely to accept, less 
than a living wage, for that would 
render difficult or . impossible that 
reasonable standard of living which 
an intelligent free Christian man re- 
quires, that he may develop his per- 
sonality and maintain a family. 
This question of a living wage has 
been treated magisterially by Dr. 
John A. Ryan, of the Catholic Uni- 
versity at Washington, in his book 
entitled ‘A Living Wage.' The Cath- 
olic Church knows nothing of that 
conception which regards the work- 
men as a race apart perpetually 
destined to depend on wages only, 
and to work for others merely, and 
entitled to receive no more than will 
keep them as laborers. . . She pre- 
fers, indeed, co-operation to compe- 
tition. Co-operation should undoubt- 
edly gradually supplant competition, 
and thus give a more practical ex- 
ample of Christian brotherhood, but 
meanwhile as long as industry is 
based on competition, and we are 


living in the present, a living and 
just wage must be obtained by all. 

In a City Store. 

“Now there are workers in this 
city who are not receiving a living 
wage. In particular, the shop girls 
are in many stores given a crimin- 
ally low wage. In one departmental 
store on Bank street girls work 
from 8.45 a.m. to 6 p.m. with one 
hour and a quarter at noon, that is 
eight hours. The parcel girls are 
paid from $4 a week up, the sales- 
girls from $5 a week up. A woman 
in this store may be saleslady for 
over a year and over 18 years of 
age, and get only $6 a week. Now 
$6 a week is not a living wage, and 
it is a sin against justice for th^ 
employer to pay it. 

“In this store during the week be- 
fore Christmas, the salesgirls work- 
ed, not merely from 8.45 a.m. to 6 
p.m., but also apart from one hour 
for supper, till 10 p.m., that is, 11 
full hours a day. Despite the huge 
amount of extra business done at 
Christmas time, the girls received 
not one cent of extra pay for this 
extra work. When, however, they 
arrive late they are docked. We 
have here a case of the sweated 
labor of women crying to heaven 
for vengeance. 

“ ‘A woman worker,' we read in 
the booklet entitled ‘A Christian 
Social Crusade,' published by the 
Catholic Social Guild, ‘has a strict 
right to a personal living wage on 
precisely the same grounds, re- 
ligious, moral and social, as a man, 
and as in the case of male wage- 
earners, this right is primarily 
against the employer.' 

“Women doing the same work 
with the same degree of efficiency 
as men in occupations where both 
sexes are employed, have a right,' 
writes Dr. Ryan in his ‘Living 
Wage,' ‘not merely to a woman's 
living wage, but to the same remun- 
eration as their male fellow-work- 
ers.' Who. will say a woman can 
obtain decent lodging, sufficient 
nourishment, adequate clothing, nec- 
essary transportation, sufficient 
reading matter, reasonable recrea- 
tion, and sufficient leisure and op- 
portunities to enable her to lead a 
full and happy human life and ful- 
fil the claims of religion, on $6 a 
week? Yet these eight conditions 
are all necessary to a living wage. 
Nor is the list' exclusive. 

“It results from the investiga- 
tions and decisions of various pro- 
vincial minimum wage boards that 
less than $12 a week is not a living 
wage for a woman. Yet the On- 
tario Government Department of 
Labor survey of 1920 shows that 
over 64 per cent of the salesladies 
in the departmental stores of On- 
tario receive less than $12 a week. 

Urges Joining Union. 

“As in this instance I have point- 
ed out a concrete case, I must point 
out also a concrete remedy. Let all 
the women and girls employed r\ 
stores in Ottawa join the Retail 
Clerks' Union. Employees should 
have sufficient esprit de corps to 
unite to defend their own vital in- 


terests. Next let the officials of the 
Retail Clerks' Union demand at once 
that the Minimum Wage Board, re- 
cently formed under the Ontario 
Minimum Wage Act of 1920, imme- 
diately investigate the wages paid 
women and girls in Ottawa stores 
and establish for such employees a 
minimum legal wage. If called upon 
to do so, I shall be ready to prove 
before the board the accuracy of the 
charges I have made against a local 
store. The board might next profit- 
ably turn its attention to the other 
employers of cheap female labor in 
Ottawa. Meanwhile if any depart- 
mental store in Ottawa is giving a 
minimum wage of $12 a week to all 
the girls and women it employs, 
apart from mere apprentices who 
have been employed less than a year, 
it could secure an excellent adver- 
tisement of its January sale by pub- 
lishing the wage scale of all its em- 
ployees. Women who do a day's 
work have a right in strict justice 
to a personal living wage, whether 
they live at home or have to board 
out. In such case, ‘The laborer is 
worthy of his hire.' Those who live 
at home and help to support a big 
family have often even more need 
of a living wage than those who 
have but themselves to support. 

“It is a mistake to suppose that a 
legal minimum living wage is neces- 
sarily the full measure of justice. 
As the four American bishops stated 
in the first Reconstruction pamphlet 
of the N.C.W.C.: ‘In a country as 
rich as ours, there are few cases 
in which it is passible to prove that 
a worker would be getting more 
than that to which he has a right, 
if he were paid something in excess 
of this ethical minimum. Why then 
should we assume that this is the 
normal share of almost the whole 
laboring population? . . . 

“Nevertheless, the full possibili- 
ties of increased production will not 
be realized so long as the majority. of 
the workers remain mere wage-earn- 
ers. Tb^ majority must somehow be- 
come owners, at least in part, of the 
instruments of production. They can 
be enabled to reach this stage grad- 
ually through co-operative produc- 
tive societies and co-partnership ar- 
rangements. In the former, the 
workers own and manage the indus- 
tries themselves; in the latter they 


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own a substantial part of the cor- 
porate stock and exercise a reason- 
able share in the management. How- 
ever slow the attainment of these 
ends, they will have to be reached 
before we can have a thoroughlj^ 
efficient system of production, or an 
industrial and sodal order that will 
be secure from the danger of revolu- 
tion. It is to be noted that this par- 
ticular modification of the existing 
order, though far-reaching and in- 
volving to a great extent the aboli- 
tion of the wage system, would not 
mean the abolition of private own- 
ership. The instruments of produc- 
tion would still be owned by in- ’ 
dividuals, not by the state.' 

“The only way in which we Cath- 
olics can to some extent disarm the 
ignorant and stupid suspicion of us 
which is ever latent and often 
patent, is to see that a proportional 
representation of practical and effi- 
cient Catholic laymen enter public 
life and thus bear a fair share of 
the burden of those who by their 
public position can help to make 
our city, our province and our coun- 
try a happier one, by Christianizing 
not merely our industry but our 
whole civilization. For, ‘Society,' 
said Leo XIIL, ‘can be healed in no 
other way than by a return to 
Christian life and Christian institu- 
tions.' " 








A I 




February 5, 1921 


THE CANADIAN RAILROADER 


Page 13 


Success of the Co-operative 
Movement in England 


{Literary Digest, New Yord). 

T he rapid growth of the co- 
operative mov^ent in Eng- 
land is being watched with 
much interest by American retail-^ 
ers. Several attempts -have been 
made to transplant the co-operative 
scheme to this country without much 
success. Indeed, it seems to the 
New York Journal of Commerce 
that “co-operative selling - plans 
seem to be successful only in the 
country of their origin,” and a Brit- 
ish merchant is quoted in The Can- 
adian Grocer as saying that selling 
competition is too keen and the art 
of salesmanship is too far advanced 
in this country for the movement to 
succeed. The Journal of Commerce 
goes on to take from The Canadian 
Grocer the following account of this 
interesting business development in 
England. 

“The co-operative movement is 
composed of three co-ordinated di- 
visions — the retail stores, the whole- 
sale warehouses, and the factories. 
The 1,200 retail stores are owned by 
some 4,000,000 co-operative consum- 
ers, who hold shares costing $5 each. 
No co-operator may hold more than 
200 shares. The seven wholesale so- 
cieties are owned and managed by 
a federation of the retail stores. The 
hundred productive establishments, 
in turn, are owned and managed 
by the wholesale organizations. 

“The Co-operative Wholesale So- 
ciety has its headquarters in Man- 
chester, where its warehouses and 
offices occupy six blocks. 

“The co-operative movement had 
in 1918 a membership of nearly 
4,000,000 shareholders, a share and 
loan capital of $388,000,000, and an 
annual sales trade of approximately 
$1,250,000,000. It has 164,000 em- 
ployees, whose collective wages and 
salaries bill equalled in 1918 some 
$70,000,000 a year. 

“Though the growth of the move- 
ment since the first year of the war 
has been rapid, the sales having 
nearly doubled in that time, the net 
surplus in 1918 was lower than 
that .of 1917 by ^2,390,000. The 
cause of this decrease in surplus was 
the high price of labor and mater- 
ials and the smaller margin be- 
tween cost and the immediate 
charges to members, societies hav- 
ing given more immediate benefit 
to purchasers at the expense of the 
quarterly returns. 

“Some idea of the competition 
in production furnished private en- 
terprise by the English co-operative 
movement is contained in the fact 
that the Co-operative Wholesale So- 
ciety (whose sales in 1919 amounted 
to $437,400,000) owns and operates 
over 100 productive establishments, 
the value of whose products in 1919 
totaled about $126,360,000. These 
workshops produce foodstuffs and 
kindred commodities, textiles, cloth- 
ing, underwear, and footwear, furni- 
ture, utensils, and household re- 
quisites. 


“Land, factories, and docks worth 
from $3,000,000 to $5,000,000 are be- 
ing bought each year by the Co- 
operative Wholesale. The turnover 
(deposits and withdrawals) of the 
C. W. S. Bank in 1919 reached over 
£500,000,000, or normally nearly 
$2,500,000,000. 

“The society now owns and oper- 
ates sixteen tea plantations of 16,- 
000 acres in India and Ceylon, a 
wheat estate of over 10,000 acres in 
Canada; its farms, estates, and 
lands., in England cover 40,000 
acres*^’ 

Successful as the co-operative 
movement has been, it is not with- 
out its troubles. “Its very growth 
has proved somewhat of a handicap, 
for the Government is seriously con- 
sidering curtailment of some of its 
immunity froni taxation.” Moreover, 

“Despite its immunity from taxa- 
tion in the past, the society has been 
handicapped by lack of capital. This 
is chiefly due to the fact that the 
number of shares which an individ- 
ual may hold in a co-operative en- 
terprise is limited by law to £200, 
or roughly $1,000. But the law 
does not prevent such an enterprise 
from placing loans or making bond 
issues to secure additional capital. 
Within the last year the C. W. S. 
has floated two issues of develop- 
ment bonds, totalling $36,450,000. 

“Another difficulty is to persuade 
the individual purchasing member to 
leave a sufficient amount of his sur- 
plus in the store to be capitalized 
for the financing of the business 
of the store. When the quarterly 
“dividend” is declared, the working- 
man — or his wife — projnptly spends 
it. To combat this tendency, the 
society has established the Co-oper- 
qtive Union, which is devoted to 
propaganda and education. The 
Union has established in the retail 
stores, kindergartens, grammar 
schools, and high schools to teach 
co-operative principles. It has just 
appropriated a large sum of money 
to establish a university for the 
same purpose.” 


DISSOLUTION OF 

LABOR UNION ASKED 
Clothing Manufacturers Association 
of New York Files Suit Against 
the Amalgamated Clothing Work- 
ers of America. 

Dissolution of the Amalgamated 
Clothing Workers of America, a 
labor union of about 170,000 cloth- 
ing workers, the majority of whom 
are employed in New York City 
and Rochester, New York, is ask- 
ed of the courts by the Clothing 
Manufacturers AssociatioA of New 
York, which for almost two months 
has been engaged in a bitter indus- 
trial struggle with the workers. . 

Announcement of the filing of the 
suit was made public last week. 
The amalgamated workers are plot- 
ting for rule of the proletariat, the 


employers charge. They express 
fear that seizure of property is the 
aim of the organization. 

Sidney Hillman, president of the 
union, was served with papers. 
There are said to be 191 other de- 
fendants. Mr. Hillman issued a 
statement in which he said that the 
present move was “the last effort 
to hold in line the manufacturers 
whom the Clothing Manufacturers 
Association misled into this lock-out, 
and who are now breaking from 
control.” 

The statement of the employers 
announcing the suit charges that the 
amalgamated is “an unlawful com- 
bination, organized solely for the 
purpose of destroying the existing 
social structure in the clothing in- 
dustry in the United States.” The 
amalgamated is further charged 
with committing acts “injurious to 
the public welfare, public morale and 
to trade and commerce, and for the 
perversion and obstruction of jus- 
tice and the due administration of 
the laws of the State of New York.” 


SO UNLIKE MOST. 

The perfect baby had reached the 
age when it could coo, an accom- 


plishment in which he indulged most 
of the time when not otherwise en- 
gaged. 

“He is the most welcome visitor 
I ever had,” said the mother proud- 
ly. “He just lies^and talks to me 
by the hour.” 

“IsnT that nice?” replied her 
visitor. “So unlike most visitors — 
they just talk and lie to you by the 
hour.” — Minnesota Star. 



IRON FRAME 


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the name JUMBO. JE^ WILLARD 
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In 5^, X and 2*lb. sizes. Whole, ground, and fine-ground. At all good grocers. 
Write for "Perfert Coffee— Perfectly Made”, Mailed fnt on request. 

CHASE ai SANBORN, MONTREAI.. 



m 


iiUlilillillllli 



Page 14 


THE CANADIAN RAILROADER 


February 5, 1921 


“EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF/* 

(“Every Man for Himself/* by Hop- 
kins Moorhouse. Published at 
$1.75, by The Musson Book Com- 
pany, Toronto). 

“Every Man for Himself,** by 
Hopkins Moorhouse, is a Canadian 
tale thrilling with romance, adven- 
ture and political dodgery. It is 
based on the mysterious disappear- 
ance of a satchel containing $50,000 
intended by a Toronto financier as 
a campaign fund for tricky work in 
politics. The author weaves an ela- 
borate plot involving love, honor, 
duty and dishonesty in a clever and 
convincing way, jumping from ac- 


tion to action more quickly than a 
movie and more interestingly than 
most movies. Scenes are laid in 
Toronto, Toronto Island and through 
the North Shore Algoma district. 
The book is a sit-up-till-you-get-to- 
the-last-word work, fresh as a new 
pin with a characterization wholly 
Canadian. 

Hopkins Moorhouse is a Winnipeg 
author who has a continental repu- 
tation as a journalist and short story 
writer. For some years he has lived 
in the west, but he was educated at 
London, Ontario, is a graduate of 
the Western University in that city, 
and served on different newspapers 
in eastern Canada. 


Dominion Bridge Co., Limited 

ENGINEERS, MANUFACTURERS 
AND ERECTORS OF 

STEEL STRUCTURES 

MONTREAL, P. 0. 

Branches: Toronto, Ottawa and Winnipei^. 


Telephone: Vlctorle 500 ESTABLISHED 1838 

The PECK ROLLING MILLS, Limited 


Mmnufecturere of 

Bar Iron and Steel, Railway Spikes, Ship Spikes, 
Horse Shoes, Wire Nails, Cut Nails, 

Tacks and Washers 

HEAD OFFICE AND WORKS ; 63 MILL STREET 


MONTREAL 



COMPRISED OF 


Ganedlen Explosivee, Limited. 

Dominion GmrtrldUe Company, Limited. 

Canadian Fabiikoid, Limited. 

The Arlindton Company of Canada, Limited. 

The Flint Varnish and Color Works of Canada, Limited. 

The Victoria Chemical Company, Limited. 

Head OfSce : 

120 St. James Street, MONTREAL, Canada. 

Consolidate OfiSces: Vancouver. Winnipeg, Toronto. 


FAIRBANKS - MORSE 

RAILROAD SUPPLIES 

Motor Cars, Track Tools, Electric Baggage 
Trucks, Hand Trucks Section 
Men’s Engines. 

Your RBceiiBfBNDA on of Fairbanks-Morsi Railway 

SUPFITF WILL BE APPRRaATBD. 

** Canada's Depatim^x House far Mechanical Gocds" 

THE CANADIAN FAIRBANKS • MORSE CO., LIMITED 

Halifax, St Joha, Quebec, Montreal. OtUwa. Toronto, HamilUa, 
Windsor, Winnipeg. Saskatoon, Calgary, Vaneourer, Victoria. 



Taylor & Arnold Engineering Co. 

LIMITED 

MANUFACTURERS OF 

Railway, Marine and 
Brass Specialties 

MONTREAL WINNIPEG 




SHOE MACHINERY SHOE SUPPLIES 

SHOE REPAIRING MACHINERY 

llHiled Shoe Mathinery of Canada llinited 


TORONTO 


MONTREAL 

KITCHENER 


QUEBEC 


Groth^, Munn & Shea 

LIMITED 

ENGINEERS AND CONTRACTORS 


FIREPROOF CONSTRUCTION 

A Specialty, 

6 Cuthbert Street, - MONTREAL 


pOMINlON 

COALCOMPANY 


' I mt ted. 


DOMINION 

• €mct • 

SPRINGHIU: 


C BiniMINOUS 

STEAM 

I) CAS COAiS 

General Sales Office 


lie ST. JAMES ST. 


MONTaCAL 


The Nichols Chemicni Co., Ltd. 

ACIDS AND HEAVY CHEMICALS 

Agents for Baker & Adamson’s Chemically Pure Acids 
and Chemicals. 

Agents for Canadian Salt Co.— “Windsor** Brand Caustic Soda and 
Bleaching Powder. 

W:>iks: Capelton. Que., Sulphide, Ont., Barnet, B. C. 
Warehouses: Montreal, Toronto. 

221 St. James Street MONTREAL 


J. J. Anglin, B. Sc. 
PresidenL 


H. J. Gross, C. D. Harrington, B. Sc. 

Vice-Prcs. & Treasurer. Vlce-Pres. & Manager. 


ANGLIN-NORCROSS, LIMITED 

♦ CONTRACTING ENGINEERS 
AND BUILDERS 


MONTREAL TORONTO HALIFAX 




February 5, 1921 


THE CANADIAN RAILROADER 


Pag* 15 



Tanners and Manufacturers of 
Leather Beltinji for 45 Years. 

MONTREAL. Que. TORONTO. Ont. ST. JOHNS, N. B 

511 William St. 38 Wellington St. Bast. 149 Prince William Strtet. 

WINNIPEG. Man. VANCOUVER. B. G. 

Princess Street and Bannatyne Avc 560 Beatty Street. 


The Robert Mitchell Co., 

LIMITED 

BRASS AND IRON FOUNDERS 
Good Workmanship and Prompt 
^Delivery 

64 Belair Avenue, MONTREAL 


BUY EDDY’S MATCHES 


MADE BY FAIRLY PAID 
CANADIAN LABOR under 
FAIR CONDITION AND 
SOLD AT A FAIR PRICE. 

—Always, Ever)fwhere, in Canada, 

Ask for EDDY’S Matches 


EAT MORE BREAD! 

“ BUY AN EXTRA LOAF TO-DAY.” 

CANADA BREAD 

IS THE BEST BREAD BAKED. 

Older or younger, we all have our likes and dis- 
likes in things to eat — some like this and some 
like that — the old fable of “Jack Sprat” is lived 
over and over in every family every day — ^but 
there is an article of food on which all tastes 
agree, and that is good wheat bread — the bet- 
ter it is, the better you like ih— the more you 
eat of it — CANADA BREAD whets appetite 
for good bread — ^because it is so good. “The 
quality goes in before the name goes on.” 


Great Modern Bakery Plants at 

Toronto, Montreal and Winnipeg 

MARK BREDIN 
President and General Manager 


GREENSHIELDS 

LIMITED 

Wholesale Dry Goods 

f 'tBB^samsssamamBassBss^s^mm 

CARPETS, HOUSE FURNISHINGS, 
SMALLWARES 


Representatives in all principal 
Cities and Towns in 
Canada 


Victoria Square 
MONTREAL 


WHEN in need of- 

WRAPPING PAPER 

BROOMS, BRUSHES 

BASKETS 
Grocers’ Sundries 

Twines and Cordage 



Walter Woods & JCo. 

Hamilton and Winnipeg 




Page 16 


THE CANADIAN RAILROADER 


February 5, 1921 


Causes For The Strike of En 
gineers, Firemen, Conduc- 
tors and Brakemen 
in Nova Scotia 


These employees of the Dominion Iron & Steel Company and the Nova Scotia Steel & Coal 
Company were working 12 hours daily for approximately 50 per cent of the wage paid for like 
classes of service in railway employment. 

The conditions of service were practically the same, EXCEPT that the employees of the steel 
companies were compelled to assume greater risks in their employment because of poor equip- 
ment, proximity to dangerous conditions arising out of the nature of the service that do not occur 
in railway employment, and exposure to all of the hazards incident to the inside operation of 
great steel industries. 

The refusal of the corporations to submit the requests of the men to a Board of Adjust- 
ment, composed of six railway officials representing the railway companies of Canada on the Cana- 
dian Railway Board of Adjustment No. 1; 

The determination of the companies to demand low standards of wages for their employees 
and high standards of returns for the corporations, and an unyielding determination to suspend 
the operations of their properties altogether rather than pay a decent wage to their employees; 

The further determination to use the resources and men of the Dominion of Canada for 
the aggrandizement of the steel corporations and the impoverishment of the employees; 

The belief that it was unfair to force these men to work a day and one-half to earn enough 
to live a day; 

These are the causes that led to the strike in which it is certain every citizen of the 
Dominion has an abiding interest, if he believes in the welfare and prosperity of Canada. 

THE EFFECT 

The wages paid by the Dominion Iron & Steel Company and the Nova Scotia Steel & Coal 
Company are shown in the demands of like industries that their men accept a reduction. November 
1st, 1920, the Algoma Steel Corporation signed an agreement with its employees that “wages paid 
by the Corporation to engineers, firemen, conductors and brakemen in the transportation depart- 
ment will remain as those paid to similar classes employed in the Algoma Central Railway Yard 
at Sault Ste. Marie.” January 6, 1921, the Committees representing these employees were called 
into the office and asked to accept a reduction. 

Undoubtedly this action of the Algoma Steel Corporation is due wholly to the influence of 
the Dominion Iron & Steel Company and the Nova Scotia Steel & Coal Company. ^ 


JAMES MURDOCK, GEO. K. WARK, 

Vice-President^ Vice-President, 

Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen 

and Engineers; also representing 
The Brotherhood of Loco- 
motive Engineers-